Indiana's casinos suffer, and so do state's tax coffers

The New York Times reports that since the mid-1990s, Indiana casinos “have filled state coffers with more than $10 billion in taxes and have drawn millions of visitors across state borders to try their luck at Indiana slot machines.”

But those good times are ending.

“Citing a shaky economy and the growing threats of casino expansion in the neighboring states of Illinois, Kentucky and Ohio, a state report predicted 2012 'will be remembered as the relative calm before Indiana braces for the looming storm of interstate competition for gaming revenues,'” according to The Times. The state's incoming tax revenue from riverboat gambling alone is expected to dip by $73.6 million by 2015, a 15% decrease.

Indiana officials “seem most frightened of what is happening in Ohio, which opened its first three casinos in 2012,” in Cleveland, Columbus and Toledo, according to The Times.

The new competition “has already been blamed for layoffs at Indiana casinos along the border,” the newspaper says, and the situation for the Hoosier state could get worse with the opening in March of a Cincinnati casino.

The lesson, The Times concludes, is that as more states pursue casinos as an untapped revenue stream, they dilute the market for states that embraced casinos earlier. And if you're excited about what casinos bring to Ohio, just understand that someday, we'll be in Indiana's shoes.

See how they grow

Bloomberg runs a long profile of Bill Emerson, CEO of Quicken Loans Inc., who has put the mortgage lender founded by Cleveland Cavaliers owner Dan Gilbert “near the very top of an industry that's reaping the rewards of a refinancing boom engineered by the Federal Reserve and President Barack Obama.”

Quicken Loans “is taking advantage of the collapse of hundreds of rivals, retreats by some of the largest banks, and hurdles faced by new competitors,” Bloomberg reports. The company in the third quarter overtook Citigroup Inc. as the country's fifth-largest mortgage originator, and it since has surpassed U.S. Bancorp and Bank of America Corp.

Lending jumped to $70 billion in 2012 from a previous record of $30 billion, but Mr. Emerson, 50, tells Bloomberg it still has room to grow.

“Our mission is to do as much or more than we did last year,” says Mr. Emerson, a former walk-on at Penn State who became a captain of that university's 1982 national championship football team. “There's a massive market out there, and 93 out of 100 people still wake up and go somewhere else.”

(That sounds exactly like something Mr. Gilbert would say.)

The company has a good chance to keep growing, says Mark Fleming, chief economist at real estate data firm CoreLogic Inc. He says unlike many rivals he has visited, Quicken's offices “buzz” with engaged employees, it runs a “slick marketing engine” and consumers are growing more used to online transactions.

“Things are changing and maybe you don't need those local relationships anymore,” Fleming says.

“I can confirm we are fully supporting the investigation of the recent 787 fuel incident," an Eaton spokeswoman told Reuters. "Without speaking about either the incident or investigation, I can tell you that we do supply pumps and valves to the program.”

The Times of London reported Wednesday that a factory run by Eaton's U.K. unit, Eaton Aerospace, may have produced a faulty valve actuator that caused a fuel leak blamed for a fire on one of the Dreamliners.

The paper said the plant in Hampshire, southern England, produced the part linked to the flow of fuel through sections of the plane.

One direction — down: Four states in the industrial Midwest — Ohio, Indiana, Wisconsin and Michigan — accounted for about half the country's loss of unionized jobs in 2012, according to this analysis from Reuters.

The total number of union members fell by nearly 400,000, from 11.8% of the work force in 2011 to 11.3% in 2012, a U.S. Department of Labor report on union membership found. The 11.3% rate is the lowest since 1936.

Ohio alone lost 43,000 union jobs last year and now has 603,000 union members. (The state's 12.6% unionized rate remains above the national average.)

Union membership has been falling since 2008, when it was 16.1 million, or 12.4% of the work force, federal data show. Reuters says it peaked in 1954, when 28.3% of workers were represented by organized labor.

Your rich sports team owner update: Ever wondered, “How many of the NBA's 30 team owners are billionaires?”